(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) JUST WHEN YOU WERE SURE that conservatism and the libertarian preference
for limited government were becoming extinct, they make unexpected
appearances, pushing up through the concrete of liberalism like determined
green sprouts.

In his State of the Union address, President Clinton once more showed his
talent for deception by outlining his latest schemes for spending our tax
dollars all the while pretending to be saving them for Social Security.
But beyond the question of whether the plan to have your cake and eat it
too is honest, we have neglected the question that once animated nearly all
domestic debates between liberals and conservatives: Should the government
be a security blanket, shielding us from every imaginable hardship or
discomfort (and extracting 40 percent to 50 percent of our income in the
process), or a remote and unintrusive rule setter, letting us find our own
way and leaving us alone?

Ventura

During the Reagan years, it seemed that there was a large and knowing
constituency for limited government. Ronald Reagan, echoing his hero Barry
Goldwater, preached limited government and was rewarded with two landslide
victories. But Clinton, who offers government help for everything from leaky
school roofs to fly-away hair, is rewarded with the highest approval ratings
of any modern White House occupant (putting aside the frightening
possibility that Clinton's approval ratings are the consequence of his
ethical failings).

It was possible to read the 1994 election results -- which felled only
Democratic office holders and shifted the power balance decisively in favor
of Republicans -- as a limited-government mandate. The Contract for America
spoke of devolving power to the states and localities. Yet, when the
Republicans proceeded to act on that assumption, they had their heads handed
to them by President Clinton, with the staunch support of the opinion polls.
Perhaps the message of 1994 was quite limited: no new government health care
system but no change in the rest of the federal behemoth.

(In an amazing bit
of political jujitsu, Clinton was later able to take credit for the balanced
budget that he had resisted so strenuously during the government shutdown.)

So where, in the post-impeachment landscape, does one find the stouthearted
notion of individual responsibility and limited government making a
comeback? Why, in the heart of liberal Minnesota -- home of Hubert Humphrey,
Eugene McCarthy and Walter Mondale. Only days after President Clinton was
proposing to federalize the problem of "social promotion," Gov. Jesse
Ventura observed that National Public Radio did not need and did not deserve
public money.

It seems Ventura had worked in radio and knew that some
commercial stations were holding their equipment together with spit and
tape, while their competitors at public radio had state-of-the-art
equipment.

OK, maybe taking on public radio is mere boilerplate. But there's more.
Last week, Jesse the Brain Ventura met with a hundred or so protesters from
the state university. They were demanding the usual things -- more money
from the taxpayers of Minnesota to help balance their checkbooks.

Perhaps you must have once been a Navy Seal, or perhaps you need a
wrestling career to supply the requisite courage, but Gov. Ventura met these
protesters with the kind of brio rarely (never?) found in politics today. "I
believe in self-sufficiency," he told the crowd to loud boos. "I am a single
mother," cried one plaintive voice from the crowd. "Well, I don't want to
sound hard-core," Ventura responded, "but why did you become a single
parent? It takes two to raise ... "

"And sometimes one of them walks away," the student interrupted. "What
then?" she demanded. Ventura looked exasperated. "You're asking the
government to make up for people's mistakes. Is that the government's job?"
But "we are the future," chanted the kids. "Who gave me anything?" Ventura
shot back.

The American people may be fickle. They may send confusing signals
sometimes. But the concept of limited government on which this nation was
founded has a way of reviving --- sometimes in quite muscular fashion.

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